The present invention is generally related to techniques for analysis of medical conditions. More particularly, it provides a computer based system and method for recording medical symptoms and facilitates analysis of the recorded information to provide variety of facilities.
As the field medicine grows more complex, the task of gathering relevant patient-symptom data faces several challenges. The amount and dimensionality of medical data generated by hospitals continues to grow. Advances in computing technologies can now facilitate the collection and storage of large quantities of medical data, which can be advantageously used for treatments that are tailored to individuals.
As dimensionality grows, the granularity of medicine may increase. It may be possible to describe medical conditions more precisely and to also formulate more precise treatment plans. If properly used, high directionality may improve healthcare by reducing the chances of mis-diagnosis. On the other hand, it may be disastrous, if health workers, such as doctors and nurses, assign a treatment based on irrelevant artifacts of the data. Part of the challenge health-workers face is finding appropriate ways to infer important medical variables such as a living being's medical state, an explanation for the state (i.e. what actions led to that state), and a course of treatment.
However, in some senses, patients also face tremendous challenges in today's medical landscape, one challenge being communicating information in a format that can be understood and used by a health-worker. This may be difficult because the information may describe something that is difficult for the worker to observe (such a living being's perceived symptoms feelings of symptoms). It may additionally be difficult because precise, accurate communication may involve the patient understanding complex medical terminology, such as terminology describing anatomy, or medical conditions, or medical treatment procedures.
Another challenge that also plagues the medical field can be summarized by the notion that people are “only human.” That is, human errors on the part of at patient or a health worker may lead to undesirable outcomes. One difficulty a patient might have is memory; they may, for example, forget the details of past symptoms, or may mis-remember them. A corresponding error on the side of a health worker could be misplacing a portion of person's medical file, or brushing over important details while scanner a patient's file. Such errors may certainly carry the potential to do lasting damage to a patient. A failure to consider a representative and accurate subset of a person's medical symptoms may lead the path towards misdiagnosis.
An additional challenge is that patients may often feel “alone,” or isolated by the growing complexity of medicine. One may, for instance, feel powerless and weak in the company of health-workers who may seem extraordinarily knowledgeable. The patient representative may feel pressured to put faith in health-workers' ability for providing quality medical advice. However, empowered patient representatives who take an active role in the medical process may actually contribute to a higher quality diagnosis and treatment. One struggle in healthcare is thus to empower patient representatives.
A further challenge that exists for many patients is developing an understanding of their own body: their strengths, weakness and limitations from a medical perspective. As medicine becomes increasingly complex, and as medical procedures and tests become harder for the general public to understand and interpret, a patient may have difficulty assimilating information about his symptoms. Thus, over time, he may fail to recognize detrimental trends, habits, and life-style choices. This is remarkable because vigilance is a one key for preventing early onset of disease. Staying constantly watchful alert and empowered, patients who learn to observe, monitor and track patterns in their behavior have the power to learn from mistakes and improve their medical condition over time. Alas, it seems too often that medical knowledge is used to treat illness which could have been prevented, had the patient realistically understood the condition of his/her body and acted in a manner to improve it. Thus, one challenge in health-care is educating patients about their own medical symptoms, helping them get in touch with their bodies so that they can make more responsible lifestyle choices.
To help a patient live a better life, it might not simply be enough for a health worker to deduce a medical cause and identify a treatment plan. One additional challenge is arming patients with logical and social reinforcement that may assist him/her in living a healthier life.
Accordingly, the present invention provides computer-based techniques for improved medical symptoms analysis that can address one or more challenges described above and others.